Going Underground
by seven dials
Summary: In which Youji finds out why tight leather pants don't mix with subways, an importuning salaryman learns that molesting assassins is a Really Bad Idea, and Ken rediscovers the joys of banana milk. Rated for bad humor, cursing and a little light slash.


**Going Underground**  
A Weiss Kreuz fanfiction by laila

Standard Disclaimer Applies: Weiss Kreuz and all related images, properties, characters and the like do not belong to me, for which the fandom is, I'm sure, thanking its lucky stars. They belong instead to Takehito Koyasu, Kyoko Tsuchiya, Movic and Project Weiss as well as I don't know what companies Stateside. This is a fan work written for fun, not profit, and is not intended to be taken seriously under any circumstances. No disrespect is intended to any of the individuals or companies concerned.

Author's Notes: A pastiche of a certain well-known fanfic in which Youji gets molested on the subway and likes it, this is my attempt to do the same thing without making my own brain explode through sheer weight of the bizarre. No disrespect is intended to the original author by my authoring of this parody: I simply _didn't get_ the original and felt compelled to respond, in some small way, to what I saw therein. Also, I was bored. This is not only an exceptionally silly story which is not meant to be taken seriously under any circumstances, it was meant to be rather shorter than it ultimately turned out to be, but I always have problems getting Youji and Ken to get to the point. I just love the way they interact so much. No subway rape here, I'm afraid: rated for subway perverts, lame humor and anvil-sized hints of the Youji x Ken variety.

* * *

The subway, generally speaking, wasn't something with featured much in Youji Kudou's life. He was aware it was there and that other people – the young, those impecunious souls lacking the means to buy and maintain their own cars, individuals tired of the good old Tokyo traffic jams and just occasionally Omi and Ken – sometimes used it to get around the place. It was somewhere underground and you didn't go there unless you had to, rather like the Hell Ken had talked about at the beginning and which now seemed to feature in his vocabulary only as a curse-word. That was the limit of his recent experience with it and, the Gods and Fate being willing, he would rather have liked it to stay that way. 

The Gods and Fate had rather different ideas, or rather Omi Tsukiyono and a briefing pack did, which where Youji was concerned came down to much the same thing.

"No, Youji-kun," he had said in that alarmingly calm, reasonable voice Youji had come to associate with Trouble Ahead, "you cannot take your car. Kurozawa's an extremely paranoid man. We can't risk him spotting your car and recognizing it the night we go in. And, unless you've managed to buy a rather less distinctive car in the last few hours…"

Youji hadn't, so he guessed that was where the matter had to lie. It hardly helped that Omi had ruled Aya's white Porsche far too distinctive for the job at hand too (not that Aya would have let Youji touch his Porsche in anything other than a life-threatening emergency and even then he'd probably have put plastic on the seat and steering wheel) and riding pillion on Ken's bike was obviously out of the question. Partly because Youji had done it once before in an emergency and had sworn, on staggering away, that he would rather die than subject himself to Ken's (to Youji's eyes, anyway) reckless driving and fondness for needlessly high speeds again, partly because Ken was in the middle of overhauling the engine anyway and was, in a manner of speaking, currently grounded himself.

Which left him in the unenviable position of public transport or nothing. With Ken Hidaka.

Youji knew Ken, and he had the eerie feeling this was _not_ going to be a good combination.

"We could always take the delivery bike," Ken said the morning they set out, far too cheerfully for Youji's liking.  
Youji shuddered dramatically. "Not while I still have my pride, Hidaka, you know my views on that thing…"  
"… are pretty much mine minus the cursing. Right." Ken nodded. "Besides, if your Super Seven's too distinctive, well…"

Yeah. It was pink. So much, Youji thought, for the delivery bike.

So to the subway. It didn't help matters much, to Youji's mind, that he didn't even know where the station was and was reduced, when the boy pointed out that he'd been walking purposefully in entirely the wrong direction for the last five minutes and did he know of somewhere closer they could catch a train from, to asking Ken.

The idea of asking Ken for anything wouldn't have been so distasteful if it hadn't been for Ken's overacted surprise and repeated assertions that he couldn't possibly know something Youji didn't, and his concerted effort not to laugh in Youji's face. Youji could tell Ken was wondering how in the Hell one got by in Tokyo without knowing where the subways were never mind that the answer was quite obvious. With a _car_. A car which a guy _didn't_ have the habit of stripping down and tinkering with every time he got a little bit bored meaning it was unusable when he actually _needed_ it and if Ken wasn't constantly overhauling his motorbike he'd know this.

Ken countered by pointing out he wouldn't have given Youji a lift anyway after last time and could he even deal with a flat and the subway station was somewhere over there.

Youji wasn't sure if he should be relieved or not and, when Ken stopped by a Snow Brand vending machine to buy himself a carton of something and milk (they'd only been out a few minutes; couldn't Ken have had a drink at home? Did he just want an excuse to play with the vending machine? Was he compensating for a deprived childhood? Sometimes Ken could be such a kid it was scary) he pointed out as much. Ken, tearing his attention away from the rank upon rank of boxed drinks trapped just behind the machine's glass façade, spared him an irritated look before digging in his pocket for some loose change.

"Shit, Youji, it's just the freakin' subway. I'm not dragging you to your death and Kurozawa ain't gonna kill himself. Look, are you sure you don't want a drink? It's a long journey and they've got coffee stuff…"

No Youji didn't want a carton of milk and coffee stuff. He wished Ken would just make up his mind what _he_ wanted so they could get on the subway and get this over with. That said, though – a wicked smile stole across Youji's face, a smile Ken of necessity missed since he was bending down to collect his drink and wondering why it was always so hard to find the thing you'd just spent your money on in that bit at the bottom of vending machines. Youji had just remembered something.

"Hang on," Youji said slowly, "am I to infer that you'd travel on those things alone, Kenken? Christ, you really drink banana milk? You're what, _twenty_?"  
"Of course I drink goddamn banana milk or I wouldn't have bought it and I'm nineteen though I don't see what that's got to do with anything and yes."  
"_Alone_?" Youji asked again, and now his smile was decidedly worrying.  
Ken blinked at him. "You think I need to hold my dad's hand or something?" Because that could prove difficult.  
"But aren't you worried about what can happen to cute little things like yourself in places like that?"  
"I'm _not_ cute, you patronizing—oh." Youji fancied he could almost see the light snapping on in Ken's personal upstairs. Then he blushed, and blushed furiously. Aggravated didn't come close to it. "_Goddamnit Youj_i!"  
"Happen to you?" Youji asked teasingly, playfully poking Ken in the cheek and laughing when Ken, fuming, swatted his hand away. "I can see why, you know, Kenken. You're easily cute enough, even when you're not blushing…"  
"Oh, shut up," Ken grumbled. And grabbed Youji by the arm and dragged him off toward the station.

Youji thought the station looked worryingly innocuous considering it was the portals of Hell. It took no time at all for him to purchase a new subway card. He could have used the machines but who was Youji to pass up passing the time of day with the pretty young thing in the ticket booth? Yes, he admitted it might have taken even less time if he hadn't decided to exchange cards with the girl, making her dimple charmingly and diffidently as she slipped him her number with the far-less-interesting subway card – which of course was about the point that Ken, once again displaying his extraordinary flair for unerringly poor timing, chose to interrupt and drag him off.

Seemed like that one had decided he was going to get absolutely no fun out of this at all. Not, Youji admitted, that he was exactly surprised Ken had interrupted; he'd been pushing it a bit there and he'd known it. Still, he'd been amused by Ken's reaction. Or rather, overreaction.

He had expected rather more in the way of crowds, so the scattering of people on the platform came as something of a surprise. Wrong time of day, he guessed. Well, with the schools quite firmly in session and most of the city's workers already sequestered in their factories or shops or offices, it was hardly a surprise. It was the main reason, he remembered, Omi had wanted them checking out Kurozawa's home now. Less chance the great man would actually _be_ there and notice them. Youji hated paranoid targets. The cocky ones were so much easier.

A few minutes passed in silence with Youji looking for trains and Ken – as Youji was rather startled to discover – looking at Youji. It was out of the corners of his eyes, admittedly, and it wasn't like there was anything more appealing in the immediate vicinity for Ken to be looking at, but it made Youji feel a little awkward. Nothing good ever came out of Ken with that look in his eyes.

"What's the problem, kiddo?"  
"Will you _stop_ gawping like a tourist?" Ken asked sourly. "It's embarrassing! Didn't you use these things when you were a kid?"  
"That," Youji said complacently, "was a long time ago."  
"_You're twenty-fucking-two_!"  
Heads turned; Youji flinched slightly. A smartly-dressed young mother glared at Ken and his two-second temper and hurried her little boy to a bench at the other end of the platform. A proper-looking middle-aged woman was staring in something approaching dismay. This was exactly why _public transport_ and _Ken Hidaka_ were not concepts Youji had ever felt any inclination to see mix. "Language, Kenken." And what was that about me being embarrassing?  
Ken colored awkwardly. "Just cut it out, okay?" he muttered, forcing his hands into the pockets of his jeans and staring at the platform.

Youji hadn't expected to feel grateful when the train arrived, but after the mess Ken had made out of waiting for it grateful was only what he was. He could hardly help noticing that none of their fellow passengers chose to get into the same carriage they had. No doubt that young mother hadn't wished to have Ken enhancing her little darling's vocabulary any further, and Youji caught himself wondering if ball control was the only thing Ken was teaching those kids he coached. Though, if he knew Ken half as well as he thought he did, it probably was given how good everyone said he was with kids.

And so the great trip into the hideously dull began in earnest. He had quite forgotten how boring subway travel usually was, but now it all came flooding back. Five minutes in and Youji was bored.

He occupied himself with staring out of the carriage windows at nothing but blackness. There was nothing to hold his attention save his fellow travelers and etiquette dictated he shouldn't want to look at them. Well, he could probably get away with watching Ken since he was traveling with him, but he got quite enough of Ken-watching when they were in the store. Now was not the place for that. He glanced cautiously up and down the carriageway, hoping to spot a pretty face, but aside from a couple of unremarkably cute college girls chatting loudly about something one of their friends had done to one of their other friends there was nothing.

Ken, who had colonized a seat about halfway down the carriage and was now applying himself to his banana milk, looked up from struggling with the straw just long enough to ask, "um, aren't you gonna sit down? It's a long journey."  
"Nah." Youji said. "I'd rather stand up. That way, if you do anything else stupid, I can pretend I've never met you."  
"Yeah, keep laughing, jerk. I'd kick you if you were close enough." Ken said irritably.  
"Why do you think I'm not?" Youji asked with an infuriating smile, braking into a grin when Ken scowled at him. There was just something about an irritated Ken…

Fortunately for Youji, Ken didn't usually have the patience to stay angry about anything for long. Losing interest in glaring, he turned back to his drink, impaling the carton with the straw with far more force than was strictly necessary and ending up with banana milk all over his hand. He cursed under his breath, absently sucking at his fingers before wiping his hand on the seat next to him. Youji caught himself staring and told himself not to, but it wasn't like there was anything more diverting going on anywhere else and if Ken _did_ insist on sucking on his fingers like a sexually frustrated Catholic schoolgirl…

Yes, he thought, subway travel really _was_ that boring.

Half an hour, five stops and one change of trains later, traveling on the subway remained really that boring. About the only thing that had changed with the line was Ken's position relative to the carriage doors and Youji's position relative to Ken; the former was now sitting right by the carriage doors and the latter had found himself, courtesy of crowds and circumstance, stood right next to him, and while there may have been cuter prospects as far as the girls in this carriage were concerned, it was too damn crowded for him to see them. Even Ken's banana milk remained a constant, though that was largely because he had acquired another carton when they changed lines.

"God. You must be addicted to that stuff."  
"I'm _thirsty_, Kudou, fuck off."

Youji was staring over Ken's head at the subway walls, again, and just starting to suspect that Ken's big secret was nothing to do with assassination or throwing soccer matches he hadn't but that deep down he was twelve years old (it would have explained a lot) when everything suddenly got a lot more interesting.

He could hardly have owned it preferable. He could have sworn he'd felt something brush against him.

If it had come during the chaos of discreet shoving and muttered '_excuse me_'s that heralded the arrival of a station. Youji would hardly have noticed it. Par for the course; a guy expected a bit of shoving under the circumstances, it wasn't even worth thinking about never mind extended comment. Under these circumstances, however, definitely not: he noticed it, noted it as something unusual. Though the people stood around him would, in a normal situation, have been a little too close even for Youji to feel entirely comfortable, the car wasn't _that_ crowded. There was no reason the motion of the train alone should have caused someone to—

— Waitaminute. Whoa. Hold it right there and was that ever a bad choice of words? _That_ wasn't an accident!

Someone had just grabbed his ass!

(And it wasn't the usual suspect, either, since they weren't in private and the usual suspect was keeping his hands very firmly to himself, or to his banana milk at least. Well, _shit_…)

His eyes widened and he tensed, momentarily mindless of his situation. Someone, some old _pervert_ was groping him. Someone, some guy – he was sure it was a man from, oh Christ, from the feel of their hand, God damn this was sick but he knew what a woman's touch felt like and Hell, it wasn't like he was a total novice where it came to men either – was lovingly stroking his ass like he was a pedigree cat and they expected him to start purring and roll over to have his tummy rubbed. Or, perhaps, other parts a little lower down. Shit, now what was he supposed to do?

Youji gritted his teeth and tried to ignore it but damn it, he wasn't going to ignore it! He was an _assassin_, not some cute little high-school girl! He didn't have to play the shy young innocent he wasn't. He wouldn't put up with this kind of treatment! That was _his_ ass! Youji and Youji alone decided who was going to have ass-grabbing privileges and who wouldn't and some total stranger on the goddammed Maranouchi line was never going to make the cut.

He was about to protest. Hell, Youji was about to go for his wristwatch and damn the consequences when he remembered two small but important details.

Firstly, this _was_ the Maranouchi line. This was a crowded subway carriage on a busy metropolitan route and he couldn't go killing anyone here unless he really fancied getting up close and personal with the inside of a jail cell. Perverted salarymen with bad cases of sexual frustration were minor annoyances, not dark beasts, so he could hardly have expected Kritiker to back him up. Shit.

Secondly and barely less significantly, Ken was watching. Well, Ken was staring in apparent fascination at his shoelaces and drinking banana milk, but he was watching all the same. Irreverent, tactless Ken, who (for all his sterling qualities) would no doubt find the idea of one of his teammates, and Youji at that, getting groped in public absolutely goddamn hilarious. Most likely Ken would laugh till he choked should he get any inkling whatsoever about what was going on, and would be giggling about it all the way between now and next Christmas even if Youji hadn't teased him about – oh shit, he'd teased Ken about being a perfect target for prowling perverts like the one who was currently caressing his buttocks like he'd just invented the things, hadn't he? The irony in this, Youji thought sourly, was just sickening.

Ken, should he get wind of this one, would no doubt fill Aya and Omi in on every humiliating little detail the minute they got back to the store and would waste no time in shooting his mouth off about it to every other girl who showed up in the shop within the next fortnight, because Ken cared. His reputation would be shot to ribbons, all because some lecherous salaryman just couldn't resist an absolutely perfect ass when he saw one…

He'd _known_ he shouldn't have worn the leather pants. They didn't really go with his shirt anyway.

Looked like he really was going to have to grin and bear it and hope the guy got bored.

Not that he was showing any signs of doing that. Quite the opposite; he'd clearly taken Youji's inability to punch him or start yelling to mean he was, God help him, actually _enjoying_ having his personal space invaded and being sexually manipulated by a stranger. The salaryman had taken that as his cue to start getting a little bolder. That hand on his ass had become a hand on his hip, and it was slowly spidering its way across to his stomach, discreetly slipping beneath the untucked tails of his shirt. Looked like he'd been right about the guy having other parts lower down on his mind. Yes, quite the forward one was his faceless friend.

That rather forced Youji's hand. If access to his ass occurred strictly on an invite-only basis, anything involving his penis required a little particulars-checking on Youji's own part. Complete strangers on subways need not apply.

"Stop that," he muttered, hoping like Hell Ken wouldn't notice his lips move still less actually _hear_ him.  
That got him a response, though not the one he had been hoping for; a gust of soft, low laughter which he felt more as an exhalation by his ear than actually heard. "You don't mean that."  
"Yes I do." Youji said forcefully, or at least he hoped it was forcefully. "Back off, buddy, or—" He broke off with a small, soft gasp. The salaryman had made a grab for his privates. Christ, no wonder Ken had been blushing when he teased him about being groped earlier. It wasn't because Ken was Ken, it was because this was _goddamn embarrassing_. Well, kiddo, looks like I owe you an apology.  
"You mean you're not enjoying himself?" Teasingly incredulous. Youji could tell the man was smirking from his tone.  
"No I am not enjoying myself." Youji said uneasily, turning away and staring fixedly at the No Smoking sign on the carriage window.

In the periphery of his vision, he thought he saw Ken raise his head and frown at him. No, Ken! Now is _not_ the time for you to start getting observant!

What the Hell was wrong with that boy? Why was it that the only times Ken ever got attentive were when Ken's attention was absolutely the last thing Youji wanted? Kitchen-table mornings and _Christ_ Youji you look crappy, you get drunk last night or something? Stumbling into the _Koneko_ the day after a mission, smile on and best foot forward, and immediately running into Ken who wouldn't buy a word of it and would hustle him back upstairs loudly scolding him about pneumonia and wound healing and you're gonna pass out man, sorry, _he's not well_. Late at night and Ken looking seriously up at him through a veil of shadow; you're not happy, are you? Or the four of them out late on another of those business-and-pleasure jaunts with him just starting to enjoy a flirtation with some wide-eyed, wet-lipped little party girl and Ken choosing precisely that moment to shout _target_ over the music and impulsively vanish into the crowd…

Or getting groped in the subway; Ken glancing suspiciously up from beneath unruly bangs, eyes saying, _what's wrong_?

No, this really wasn't a good time for Ken to start getting observant.

Somewhere above their heads, a speaker crackled into life; a sweet, lilting, almost immediately infuriating female voice sung the name of the next station. The train slowed and slowed, light bursting in through the windows as it rattled and jolted its way to a standstill. All about Youji people stirred, some reaching for bags or coats. For a moment Youji hoped his new friend would be getting off here or, even better, that he would, but the man didn't seem in any particular hurry to leave; Ken tucked his feet in slightly and looked worryingly immovable. Oh, _great_, Youji thought for what felt like the thousandth time as he was jostled and elbowed by the crowd flowing through the doors and the man behind him took advantage of the confusion to press his own body hard up against him, pinning Youji against his chest. Looked like he was going to be stuck with this guy for a little while yet.

Someone apologized their way past the two of them. A little boy, three or four or however old kids were these days, gazed curiously up at him for a moment or two until his mother hurried him away. Ken shifted slightly and murmured an apology as a pretty girl sat down beside him, giving her a bright, friendly, entirely genuine smile that had her coloring demurely and Youji, momentarily distracted from more immediate matters, feeling slightly resentful.

"Look," he said as the train jolted into life again and oh shit was that the guy's pelvis? Those were certainly his fingers and _that_ was the top of Youji's pants and this was not looking good at all, "just fuck off, will you?"  
"Now, I can tell you don't mean that." The salaryman murmured softly.

Yeah, maybe his complaint would have sounded slightly more convincing if the guy hadn't been diligently massaging his groin for the last five minutes. Youji would have challenged any man alive not to have some reaction to that, desire be damned. He tried very hard to think unsexy thoughts (Persia in a thong; Momoe shaving her legs; doing the washing-up in rubber gloves and a PVC apron), to no apparent effect other than to make his assailant, clearly the persistent type, try even harder to elicit a reaction.

"That," Youji said stiffly, "proves nothing." And rather wished his voice had been the only stiff thing about him.

…. okay, Masafumi Takatori _a la_ giant baboon. Masafumi _a la_ giant baboon in a sequined g-string and rhinestone pasties, _pole-dancing_. Omi's calculus homework. The politely horrified look on Ken's face on being rudely confronted with Aya's attempted lasagne. No, edit Ken out of that, let's just have Aya's lasagne. Doing the laundry after a mission. The guaranteed passion-killer that was a sword-wielding Aya bearing down on a target and screaming, rather appropriately, bloody murder. _Now_ do you believe I'm not enjoying this, asshole?

The more attentive of his immediate neighbors were starting to turn in their seats, glance over from behind the camouflage of books and newspapers and falls of hair or occasionally nothing at all, discreetly excited. Ken, frowning, lost interest in his untied shoelaces. People were staring. _Ken_ was staring. This, Youji thought (and the thought felt curiously understated) was not good…

Something nudged his foot. Another foot. God damn couldn't they even leave his _shoes_ out of this? Youji raised his head, uncomfortably aware he was obviously uncomfortable, and found himself looking right at Ken. Oh, so it had been Ken who was playing footsie with him? Well god damn, Hidaka, what'd you want to do – oh, for heaven's sakes, isn't it obvious? He's just trying to get your attention. They were, after all, in public. This is Ken, remember? The boy was regarding him seriously over the carton of banana milk, his brown eyes wide and grave.

"Youjiiii," Ken said in a soft, incredulous undertone, lingering on the final vowel sound in his name, "is that guy's hand…"  
"Yes." Youji said through gritted teeth. He spoke quietly, so the man himself, whoever he was. couldn't hear him, but from the way Ken's eyes widened his teammate had caught it. "He has. And if you laugh, Hidaka, you're fucking dea— Christ it's that obvious?"  
Ken nodded. The one thing he didn't look was at all amused. Well, wasn't that one just full of surprises. Or not. He looked – God damn, was it just Youji's imagination or did Ken look just the slightest bit _jealous_? "It is from here." He said seriously. "I've seen you pretend you're not pissed often enough before…" He hardly needed to ask why Youji hadn't said anything; it was plain from his expression that he understood already. Ken pulled a face, looked briefly down at his bare hands, fidgeted slightly. Said only, "we're getting off next stop, okay?" He didn't need to add, before I can lose my temper. That much was obvious just from looking at him.

Ken had spoken too loudly. The salaryman had heard him, caught his eyes, realized he was looking. He stepped back a bit, giving the boy an assessing look which had Ken scowling simply for the look of the thing, and draped an arm possessively about Youji's waist. Youji gritted his teeth and tried very hard not to think about committing foul and bloody murder. He didn't quite succeed. He didn't need to look at the man's face to know what kind of expression he might find there, and what he must have been thinking.

The idea of anyone thinking anything of the sort about Ken left Youji unsure if he should be horrified on the boy's behalf, or if he should burst out laughing. Ken was many things, some of them very strange, but he was, when all was said and done – well, he was _Ken_. His idea of sexual experimentation was leaving the lights on…

"Oh, you're together?" The man was asking contemplatively.  
"Yes." Ken said angrily. "Together." He made it sound rather like a challenge. Well, Youji thought, that was Ken for you. He could make damn near anything sound like a challenge if he was in the mood for it. Absently, he wondered what the Hell the guy looked like. He'd got glimpses of a not-unpleasant face, understood that the man was worryingly tall and surprisingly strong, but no more than that. Maybe Ken didn't seem to like what he saw, but Ken didn't catch on quick to little things like looks. In this case, Youji suspected Ken might have had a point. It would have taken more than a pretty face to make this one anything other than a pest in a nice suit.  
The man smiled – at least Youji supposed he had, from the aggrieved look that flitted briefly across Ken's face. He had a very bad feeling he knew where this was going. Or would have been going, had the pervert in question not decided to accost a pair of trained killers. "Well then," he said – and even Ken could hardly have failed to notice the lascivious tone to his voice, though he most likely wouldn't have put it _quite_ like that – "I see no reason why you shouldn't come too."  
Ken blinked, the perfect picture of innocent bewilderment. "Come where?"

But he glanced over at Youji as he spoke, his eyebrows raised in silent query. Youji gazed back at him, taking advantage of the man's sudden fascination with his teammate-and-then-some to slip discreetly from his arms, and shrugged. Momentarily, he could almost have felt sorry for the guy, but… nah, he couldn't say he didn't have it coming. Nobody groped Youji Kudou in public and got away with it. They shouldn't, he thought in sudden vexation, be leering at Ken, either. Total strangers didn't have leering privileges either. Such privileges had to be earned and until such a time as they were, such things weren't good for one's short-term health.

This time, when the train slowed to a stop, Youji got to his feet and stepped from the carriage. The salaryman followed, smirking to himself. So did a boy with a carton of banana milk.

"Youji?" Ken said curiously fifteen rather crowded minutes later, "do you think I got carried away?"  
"Nah." Youji replied, casually pushing his sunglasses back up his nose and lighting a cigarette. "I think you were a little too lenient. You're too soft for your own good sometimes, Kenken."

The intention, if they'd even had an intention, had been to get their overly forward friend somewhere private then have Youji point out politely but firmly why it wasn't a good idea to grab a total stranger's ass when on the subway just in case said total stranger happened to be an assassin. That good intention, like all good intentions, had been doomed the minute they'd stepped into a side street whereupon the guy had grabbed Ken's ass and murmured something that Ken couldn't make head nor tail of but he'd picked up the tone well enough. That had been more than enough to make him blush and drive a pre-emptive elbow into the man's diaphragm on general principle.

Youji admitted he probably shouldn't have told Ken precisely what the man had been suggesting he did, or rather what he had been suggesting Ken allowed him to do. That had been where things had _really_ started getting out of hand. He'd had to hold Ken back for a bit until he cooled down somewhat. It's not the suggestion, Ken had pointed out indignantly when Youji asked him why he was so upset, well, not really, it's just it's come from _him_! It's embarrassing!

When it came to the combination of indecent suggestions and Ken Hidaka, Youji knew, context was very much all.

Leading to – well, nothing that Weiss weren't used to. The somewhat battered figure lying on the paving at their feet was groaning gently and likely to be remaining that way and there were no weapons to be cleaned off, which all made for a nice change of pace. And, admittedly, most of the time the dark beasts weren't minus the majority of their clothing. Today's not-exactly-a-target had humorous comedy underpants on, the kind of underpants a mother or sadistic girlfriend might buy and which only a laundry crisis could have incited him to wear. He'd obviously been planning on undressing _really quickly_. There weren't, Ken had said somewhat regretfully, many things you could do to a guy when you weren't supposed to do anything permanent.

Under the circumstances, though, Youji was quite content to settle for embarrassing the guy. And beating him up a bit, of course, but just a bit. The last thing they wanted was this getting back to Kritiker. The guy was hardly likely to admit to quite how he'd come to end up in a side street wearing a pair of comedy underpants if he wanted to keep what remained of his pride where it was. If nothing else came of this at least this particular Somewhat Gray Beast might remember to keep his hands to himself next time.

Not that this was much good to Youji. The situation was pretty much unsalvageable from his point of view, though the novelty underpants had helped a little.

Ken nudged the prone form with his foot. The salaryman groaned slightly. "Man, he looks stupid. How's he going to get home?"  
"That," Youji said absently, balling up the man's shirt and pants and tucking them under one arm as he ambled casually from the mouth of the alleyway, "is very much up to him. Anyway, I suppose we'd better get going. We've still got a mansion to stake out."

Pausing only to bury the man's suit in a nearby trashcan, where it was shortly followed by a sadly empty carton of banana milk, he stepped back out into the crowded streets. Lunch hour was just beginning; they were running late and Omi would be pissed, but it wasn't like there was anything either of them could do about that.

Still, he wasn't getting back on the subways again for anyone. Seemed the combination of his ass neatly packaged in tight leather pants was simply too good a prospect for the perverts of this world to pass up. He couldn't trust those salarymen to keep their sticky fingers to themselves. The best thing Youji could do short of changing his pants – there was, after all, absolutely nothing he could do about how amazingly tempting his ass looked in anything – was, like a mother stowing the cookies away on top of one of the high cupboards, remove the source of the temptation. Or he could get a seat, of course, but that was simply too easy…

"So," Ken asked after a few awkward minutes, slipping his hands back into his pockets, "What now?"  
"What now," Youji said, smirking contentedly round his cigarette, "since I clearly can't trust the perverts of the world to keep their hands off me, is we forget the subway and get a cab to Kurozawa's place, I claim the money back under sundry expenses and we never mention any of this ever again."  
Ken gave him a funny look. "_Sundry expenses_? Your private clients must have loved you."  
"It's all just a matter of creative accounting."  
"And is there anything in the world you _won't_ use as an excuse to prop up your ego?"  
"No," Youji said, absently flicking his mostly spent cigarette over his shoulder, "probably not, and you love me for it, Kenken, admit it."  
"Like Hell! Fuck you."  
"You really do have a way with words, Kenken." Youji said playfully. Playfully, he ruffled Ken's hair.  
Once again Ken swatted his hand away, scowling. "You'll be lucky if I _don't_ tell Omi all about this after that crack."  
"You do that," Youji said in a playfully threatening purr, "and I'll show you _exactly_ what that guy wanted to do to you." And he winked. Mischievously, pointedly, lasciviously.  
"_Youji_!"  
"In fact, I think I might just do it anyway. You're just too cute when you're scandalized…"

Blushing furiously, Ken stared at Youji's retreating back for a while, silently seething. Then he did what any other young man with any sense of pride – not to mention a sense of humor – would have done in return. He gave Youji a forceful slap on the behind, stopping the man in his tracks and, in fact, nearly knocking him off his feet, and then ran. There was going to be hell to pay when Youji caught up with him, but Ken reckoned he could live.

Some guys just had it coming.

-ende-

**The Morals of the Story:**

1. If you're going to wear tight leather pants, drive everywhere.  
2. Ken Hidaka can't even spell 'voyeurism'.  
3. It is not possible to discreetly molest someone in the middle of a goddamn _subway carriage_, because people are people and as such possess eyes.


End file.
